News PS5 Pro confirmed — New Playstation will cost $699.99 on November 5 with larger GPU and PSSR Upscaling

[Admin]

Sony announced the PS5 Pro, which will launch on November 5 with a larger GPU and PSSR upscaling as well as better ray tracing.

PS5 Pro confirmed — New Playstation will cost $699.99 on November 5 with larger GPU and PSSR Upscaling : Read more

 

[Heat_Fan89]

That's a tough sell unless you want a PS5 and don't have one already. So $200 more and it's questionable if developers are going to fully take advantage of the souped up specs. Are they going to re-optimize their previously games for the PS5, after the entire industry is bleeding money and laying off employees and shuttering game studios?

As i've said countless times, I purchased a PS4 Pro and few games took advantage of Boost Mode. I regretted that purchase.

We are also 4 years in the current gen cycle and something tells me (a hunch) that Microsoft may leapfrog Sony's PS6 earlier than expected which going on the current trend, they may do it in another 2 years instead of three yrs.

That would cause Sony to respond because most games today are multi-platform.

 

[Elusive Ruse]

The footage from PS5 Pro was impressive and that's only existing games being optimised for it, games built with the Pro specs will look even better I bet, I'm also glad Sony isn't relying on FSR anymore and PSSR should rival XeSS and might even come close to DLSS if the footage from Ratchet's PSSR was any indication.
Lack of an optical drive and a steep markup is disappointing though, I will be sticking with my PS5.

 

[DS426]

That does feel like a steep hike just to get performance and fidelity at the same time. I'm also not convinced that most existing games will have a bunch of work done to allow them to fully utilize the hardware updates, even with the CPU architecture portion remaining constant. That's rather funny to me as the GPU portion changing would require more changes from devs than the CPU would, with x86 being x86 and newer models typically having perfect backward-compatibility, at least in the PC world anyways (this shows me that consoles are still over-limited in there forward-thinking and ability to somewhat easily adapt to hardware changes).

Anyways, PS5 is still basically priced at pre-inflation levels while PS5 Pro obviously has all of the post-inflation pricing built in. Lol, there's also an automatic upcharge when you can put an AI sticker on the product. Considering all this, I reckon that means $100 comes from the AI sticker and post-inflation status and the other $100 is the hardware upgrade.

Not saying I agree with it but that's Sony's thinking, if you ask me.

 

[evdjj3j]

"8K support was also mentioned in Sony's writeup. Sony touted the extremely high-resolution on the original PS5's box at launch, though the company eventually quietly removed it."

How does Sony get away with this? They made false feature claims on the PS3 also.

 

[Giroro]

That's a tough sell unless you want a PS5 and don't have one already. So $200 more and it's questionable if developers are going to fully take advantage of the souped up specs. Are they going to re-optimize their previously games for the PS5, after the entire industry is bleeding money and laying off employees and shuttering game studios?

As i've said countless times, I purchased a PS4 Pro and few games took advantage of Boost Mode. I regretted that purchase.

We are also 4 years in the current gen cycle and something tells me (a hunch) that Microsoft may leapfrog Sony's PS6 earlier than expected which going on the current trend, they may do it in another 2 years instead of three yrs.

That would cause Sony to respond because most games today are multi-platform.

It's more than $200 more. You have to compare the price of the pro to the digital-only model, not the real PS5.

 

[Giroro]

So what do we think kids are going to do now that video games are dead?

Drugs?

 

[purposelycryptic]

$699.99 plus whatever they are going to charge for the optical drive add-on, probably add $80-$100 on top (I would never buy this if I couldn't even play all my games on it)?

All to play games that will still use the original PS5 as their development target, in a point in its life cycle where they are just now slowly reducing the number of PS4/5 cross-releases, upscaled and at a steady frame rate?

Just... No.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

It's more than $200 more. You have to compare the price of the pro to the digital-only model, not the real PS5.

Sure but most people opted for the disc version at purchase. I never considered the all digital version and just judging how fast each version sold out, the PS5 disc version always had the highest demand.

And keep in mind that the PS5 Pro should have included a BR disc player, there was NO reason not to. It was Sony's way of charging $799 all along. They just went about it in a sneaky way. It's kinda like going to the grocery store, you grab a 1/2 gallon of Tropicana OJ and notice the price is slightly more, but it's no longer 64oz, it's now 52oz. Shrinkflation.

 

[Penzi]

Personally, the clarity improvements the PS4Pro brought to my 4K TV were completely worth it to me. I will have to see what actually releases and how it stacks up from hardware to actual games before I decide on whether a PS5Pro fits into my gaming ecosystem. I’m cautiously optimistic but definitely not balls out gung-ho… by the time it releases perhaps we’ll have some idea of what next generation PC GPUs are like and I can make a rational decision…

 

[thestryker]

Article doesn't mention it but the drive costs $79 and vertical stand costs $29 which makes the equivalent festure cost of the PS5 Pro $807 USD. So best case scenario you're paying over 60% more to get 45% more performance but realistically you're not likely getting their claimed maximum. They didn't raise PS5 prices in the US like they had the rest of the world, but it doesn't seem like other regions are getting a break on the Pro pricing. It will be interesting to see how it goes as far as the market is concerned.

It seems Microsoft is likely moving on to the next generation rather than doing a refresh. Given that the APU in the Series X is fairly large already Sony's pricing may indicate why they leaned this way. I do think Microsoft generally speaking had the right idea with the S and X, but really needed to have the same memory capacity for both. I could see them potentially doing something similar for the next generation though there has been talk of a handheld. If Valve can sell the Steam Deck at $400 it seems likely Microsoft could do the same with something more performant.

 

[brandonjclark]

The non-Pro iPhones are just as good as the Pro lineup, for most people.

That doesn't stop people from buying the Pro version.

When people see Pro in the name, it sells itself.

Sad...

 

[hotaru251]

Sony gotta make some of Concord $ back after wasting 8yrs of dev & paychecks to the devs

joking aside the cost is stupidly high for no real benefit. Most people ownt even notice a difference between a pro and normal model playing same game honestly.


more importantly...remember when Sony said the PS5's look was supposed to be a centerpiece art? I didnt think they could but this looks even uglier than the original...

 

[epobirs]

The footage from PS5 Pro was impressive and that's only existing games being optimised for it, games built with the Pro specs will look even better I bet, I'm also glad Sony isn't relying on FSR anymore and PSSR should rival XeSS and might even come close to DLSS if the footage from Ratchet's PSSR was any indication.
Lack of an optical drive and a steep markup is disappointing though, I will be sticking with my PS5.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for anyone to produce a PS5 Pro native game. It's unlikely the installed base will ever be more than 10% of the PS5. It just won't make financial sense to make such a game, and history suggests that Sony would be highly adverse to allowing a PS5 Pro only game. It's a high end option, to be supported as a feature of a game targeting the spec with the highest installed base within the generation, like the 4090 for PC gaming. It makes for great demos but would never be a viable market by itself.

 

[epobirs]

Article doesn't mention it but the drive costs $79 and vertical stand costs $29 which makes the equivalent festure cost of the PS5 Pro $807 USD. So best case scenario you're paying over 60% more to get 45% more performance but realistically you're not likely getting their claimed maximum. They didn't raise PS5 prices in the US like they had the rest of the world, but it doesn't seem like other regions are getting a break on the Pro pricing. It will be interesting to see how it goes as far as the market is concerned.

It seems Microsoft is likely moving on to the next generation rather than doing a refresh. Given that the APU in the Series X is fairly large already Sony's pricing may indicate why they leaned this way. I do think Microsoft generally speaking had the right idea with the S and X, but really needed to have the same memory capacity for both. I could see them potentially doing something similar for the next generation though there has been talk of a handheld. If Valve can sell the Steam Deck at $400 it seems likely Microsoft could do the same with something more performant.

Microsoft isn't even bothering to do 6NP versions of their APUs. The leaked presentation deck indicates such models were planned but it seems likely they've deemed it not worth the cost for this generation rather than focusing on the next. The pages for the recently introduced variants indicate they're still using the same 7NP APUs as the launch models. This also makes it very unlikely that any mid-gen upgrade model, like the Xbox One X, is in the works.

 

[salgado18]

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for anyone to produce a PS5 Pro native game. It's unlikely the installed base will ever be more than 10% of the PS5. It just won't make financial sense to make such a game, and history suggests that Sony would be highly adverse to allowing a PS5 Pro only game. It's a high end option, to be supported as a feature of a game targeting the spec with the highest installed base within the generation, like the 4090 for PC gaming. It makes for great demos but would never be a viable market by itself.

Probably any PS5 Pro game has to run on the PS5 also, so it's not even an option.

 

[epobirs]

I don't know why the authors are acting like the process node is some great mystery. It is 6NP in its entirety or a large portion. We already know Sony ported the PS5 APU to 6NP late in the PS5's production and then used the newer APU version in the Slim. At the same point in the PS4 and Xbox One life cycles, the engineers assessed how much ceiling for more transistors they had. Adding CUs was the obvious first choice, then making tweaks that offered improvement while maintaining compatibility.

6NP is the default here, as it exists to offer designers of 7NP devices a means of refinement while being closely compatible to the older process. While the use of chiplets opens the possibility of mixing process nodes on the same package, it has its own problems still. Taking the whole APU to 5NP or denser is very unlikely as the cost would be prohibitive. AMD has zero interest in porting ZEN2 or RDNA2 to those nodes for its own products, so all of the expense would fall on Sony. (Microsoft too if they went this route but it appears they aren't bothering with a mid-gen upgrade this generation.) When Sony and Microsoft wanted die shrinks in the previous generation, AMD had already done the work on their IP for their use. Thus the cost for Sony and Microsoft then was fairly low by comparison.

 

[Giroro]

It seems Microsoft is likely moving on to the next generation rather than doing a refresh. Given that the APU in the Series X is fairly large already Sony's pricing may indicate why they leaned this way. I do think Microsoft generally speaking had the right idea with the S and X, but really needed to have the same memory capacity for both. I could see them potentially doing something similar for the next generation though there has been talk of a handheld. If Valve can sell the Steam Deck at $400 it seems likely Microsoft could do the same with something more performant.

I don't think anybody has the tech right now that's showing an obvious path to what a next generation home console would be (I think there's some pretty obvious candidates for switch 2 though).
But I think it's in Microsoft's best interest to end this generation as quickly as possible and get a hard cut from the XseS and it's memory bottleneck. Then they can also use the new architecture as an excuse to shut people up about all their Activision games being Xbox console exclusive.

I think an advantageous timeline they should consider will be to announce next year and ship holiday 2026 - likely beating ps6 to market by 2 full years. But to do that, the hardware is going to be weird.
They would have to go with something that's modified from what's available today, built on today's advanced nodes. Slight chance of going Intel with lunar lake style chiplets (Intel might be willing to cut them a real good deal right now), but much more likely Snapdragon X. I think they are at a minimum currently doing R&D to explore if they can make ARM backwards compatible for Xbox, and I think the product of that work is being beta tested today in their windows on ARM experiment.

If they go that route, I would expect a much smaller, more efficient, and hopefully cheaper Xbox that won't perform much better than XseX, but will have AI hooks and an annoyingly high amount of memory (because what else could they do to make the specs look big). They might try using HBM, but that could only happen if the AI bubble pops within the next 6 months. So, unlikely.
I also expect the next Xbox to have a very dumb and confusing name, again.

 

[umeng2002_2]

I'm most interested in the PSSR vs DLSS comparison.

I do feel this generation has been a broken generation since the PS5 was scalped for so long because of Covid. The PS5 Pro might be the real start of this generation.

 

[Elusive Ruse]

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for anyone to produce a PS5 Pro native game. It's unlikely the installed base will ever be more than 10% of the PS5. It just won't make financial sense to make such a game, and history suggests that Sony would be highly adverse to allowing a PS5 Pro only game. It's a high end option, to be supported as a feature of a game targeting the spec with the highest installed base within the generation, like the 4090 for PC gaming. It makes for great demos but would never be a viable market by itself.

I think you misunderstood my meaning, games built with the Pro spec in mind will have to also run on PS5 but at a lower spec, I see it happening. Now as your conjecture about future, we will have to see how things turn out in the future. The 4090 sold like hot cakes though, I'm not sure why you are bringing that to the conversation as evidence of something failing to deliver.

 

[umeng2002_2]

Do we know the 4090 sold like hot cakes? More than likely nVidia is basically doing a build to order model, or very close to it, so they can put more silicon towards AI data center cards.

 

[thestryker]

I don't think anybody has the tech right now that's showing an obvious path to what a next generation home console would be (I think there's some pretty obvious candidates for switch 2 though).
But I think it's in Microsoft's best interest to end this generation as quickly as possible and get a hard cut from the XseS and it's memory bottleneck. Then they can also use the new architecture as an excuse to shut people up about all their Activision games being Xbox console exclusive.

I think an advantageous timeline they should consider will be to announce next year and ship holiday 2026 - likely beating ps6 to market by 2 full years. But to do that, the hardware is going to be weird.
They would have to go with something that's modified from what's available today, built on today's advanced nodes. Slight chance of going Intel with lunar lake style chiplets (Intel might be willing to cut them a real good deal right now), but much more likely Snapdragon X. I think they are at a minimum currently doing R&D to explore if they can make ARM backwards compatible for Xbox, and I think the product of that work is being beta tested today in their windows on ARM experiment.

The current CPU cores are Zen 2 which has become a massive problem the longer the generation goes. Zen 4c/5c are definitely an obvious path forward on the x86 side of things as they're faster, more efficient and have great density. It's also possible that AMD could do a shared V-Cache for an APU which would cover both CPU and GPU. I'm not sure whether or not that would end up being cheaper/more efficient than a wider memory bus though.

The only chance of Intel getting back into the console game would be if they were doing all of the manufacturing and I'm not sure there's a timeline which would work.

Arm is certainly a possibility, but you run into a graphics IP problem pretty rapidly. I'm not sure AMD, nvidia or Intel would license their IP if they didn't get something else out of it.

If they go that route, I would expect a much smaller, more efficient, and hopefully cheaper Xbox that won't perform much better than XseX, but will have AI hooks and an annoyingly high amount of memory (because what else could they do to make the specs look big). They might try using HBM, but that could only happen if the AI bubble pops within the next 6 months. So, unlikely.
I also expect the next Xbox to have a very dumb and confusing name, again.

I don't think they'd get away without a pretty large performance improvement if they're making a new flagship no matter what way they go. HBM is a non-starter due to packaging cost even without AI. Naming wise I've gotta agree because they have had the dumbest names ever after the first one.

 

[Broly MAXIMUMER]

Sony, Baby! Remeber how the launch PS3 went?

You sure abou this?

Like, while I do indeed feel like quite a lot of games got a "PS4 Pro enhanched" update, the industry isn't where it was back then. Devs aren't staying u their chains to "just do it" now lol.

Maybe first party devs who are getting more than fed, but all others I feel are fonna thumb their noses at this, even if the Playstation is the lead / hig-priority development platform at this point

 

[Bikki]

The only articles that I can smell "quality" are either from Walton or Paul. Good piece as always.

 

[Giroro]

The current CPU cores are Zen 2 which has become a massive problem the longer the generation goes. Zen 4c/5c are definitely an obvious path forward on the x86 side of things as they're faster, more efficient and have great density. It's also possible that AMD could do a shared V-Cache for an APU which would cover both CPU and GPU. I'm not sure whether or not that would end up being cheaper/more efficient than a wider memory bus though.

The only chance of Intel getting back into the console game would be if they were doing all of the manufacturing and I'm not sure there's a timeline which would work.

Arm is certainly a possibility, but you run into a graphics IP problem pretty rapidly. I'm not sure AMD, nvidia or Intel would license their IP if they didn't get something else out of it.

I don't think they'd get away without a pretty large performance improvement if they're making a new flagship no matter what way they go. HBM is a non-starter due to packaging cost even without AI. Naming wise I've gotta agree because they have had the dumbest names ever after the first one.

I'm not convinced Zen 2 is the bottleneck for console games right now, and people don't seem too excited about graphics at the moment.
V cache, maybe could be a good reason to stick with AMD, and AMD would be likely if Microsoft wants to wait a couple more years and have a repeat of this generation, presumably with even bigger-er, more power consuming, and more expensive-er consoles.
But Microsoft shouldn't want to do that. For one thing, any money Microsoft puts into making a better semi-custom AMD apu is also going to teach AMD to make a better APU for PS6. Also if Microsoft makes a console too similar to Sony, they're going to take a lot more heat when they stop making cross-platform games.
Microsoft should be realizing by now that their strategy of having the most powerful console has never come remotely close to working.
Plus, I just don't think what AMD has today will give them enough of an advantage to sell the next gen on power alone. So AMD is not the option if Microsoft wants to emulate the success of the 360 and rush to beat Sony to Market by a year or two. Granted the 360 still lost, but it was in the lead for a good while.

If the next Xbox is going to break generations, then I'm not envisioning a flagship. The Xbox series X is selling like a GameCube; Microsoft needs a Wii. Make a smaller, cheaper, "cute", colorful console that casts a wide net and brings the fun. Simplify to 1 model at launch. Ditch the current ad-first interface. They should also strongly consider letting people play online for free.
Throw in all the gimmicks. Maybe do Kinect again which will hopefully benefit a lot from AI, or anything else new they have in the works. Maybe a VR chat type thing for their avatars.
Maybe make and integrate a twitch-like platform so kids can buy jpegs with real money and run baby's first live stream with overpriced first-party accessories. Whatever it takes to look fresh. Doesn't matter.
Get it on the market first, start accumulating some wins, and holy cow get some system selling games on the thing. The "flagship" can wait a couple years and be the Pro/elite/X model - but only if absolutely necessary.